Lobbying in EU Foreign Policy

Event organised as part of the Rencontres Européennes de Sciences Po.

 

With:

 

Benedetta Voltolini, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow, the Centre d’études européennes.

 

 

Do lobbyists have an impact on EU foreign policy? There is an iconic image of foreign policy as being made by leaders, states and, at times, international or supranational institutions. And the same idea applies to EU foreign policy, which is generally conceived as a peculiar policy field. However, we tend to forget that a variety of non-state actors, such as business groups, NGOs, solidarity movements and think tanks, try to influence and shape EU policies according to their preferences, as it is often accounted for other policy areas or in the case of US foreign policy. By drawing on the case of EU foreign policy vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this presentation will challenge the widespread idea that lobbying in EU foreign policy is not relevant and it will discuss how non-state actors contribute to EU foreign policy-making, showing who these lobbyists are, which instruments and strategies they use and at which level (national and European) they are active.

 

Benedetta Voltolini is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Centre d’études européennes. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and has spent research periods at the EU Institute for Security Studies (Paris), the Freie Universität (Berlin) and Sciences Po (Paris). Before joining Sciences Po in September 2015, Benedetta was Lecturer in International Relations at Maastricht University (the Netherlands). Her research interests include lobbying in EU foreign policy, EU external policies towards the Middle East and North Africa, the Arab-Israeli conflict and processes of framing and knowledge construction.

 

Students : free entrance according to available places

Contact : resp.mae@sciencespo.fr 

 

© European Union 2015 – European Parliament